Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - OK fine, we'll talk Tank for Trevor and Vikings recent draft history with PFF's Mike Renner
Episode Date: September 30, 2020Read Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
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Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider.
Matthew Collar here along with Mike Brenner from Pro Football Focus.
The two-for-one podcast is terrific with Mike and Austin Gale
and also his work outstanding at pff.com.
And you can look now at insane levels of college football coverage
at Pro Football Focus.
What's up, Mike?
Matt, how are you doing?
Thanks for having me back, man.
Is that the best way to describe it, what you guys are doing now with college football?
It's like no reasonable person or people or organization should ever give us this much
detail about college football?
Basically, we're diving deeper.
That's just the goal, I think, on NFL as well, is just we're going to hit every single angle as deep as possible.
And there are people out there we believe that are that into it, as into it as we are.
And we'll flock to our website then.
Hey, let me ask you before we get into Justin Jefferson and Tank for Trevor and a few other things about Rashad Bateman and his situation.
What do you think?
I mean, it's kind of a weird spot that college football is in.
I think if he wants to play that the NCAA should let him play
because he didn't know that there was going to be a Big Ten season
when he opted out.
But also, from his perspective, does it help him to play
when he was probably already going to be a first-round pick?
I think it always helps you to play when he was probably already going to be a first round pick? I think it always helps you to play.
If you play, stay healthy.
Having one more in a recent year of tape is going to help you.
Even if maybe you're not quite as productive, I don't think there's a lot he could do on
tape that would really put his draft stock back because you get better.
You know, you get better as you get older.
Theoretically, you're not getting worse. so I do think that that would help him especially
in the deep wide receiver class where there's going to be you know six or seven guys in a
similar range and if they had just seen them and they just played really well well you might be
SOL and you might be dropping in the second round so I do think that it could help his draft stock
I don't think in my opinion he really needs to like he's still going to be a fairly high draft
pick but I don't think he's locked into the first round right now if he does skip 2020. And it would be a long time without
playing football for anybody who doesn't play. It would almost be like tearing your ACL or something
your senior year, and then they don't get to see you play for a really long time. So from that
perspective, it makes sense. And then also from the Gophers' perspective, they could really use him
because I think he was really their offensive driver last year yeah and i don't care where you're training
this fall you're probably not training against you know everyone's playing football that's good
at football it's good at cornerback so what can you be working on in terms of beating guys like
all you can do is basically lift weights run routes on your own. You're not getting that real reps in practice, in games against real
competition, figuring out, you know, the nuances of the position that you just can't do, you know,
on a whiteboard or I guess on a practice field alone by yourself. Yeah, that's a good point.
Let me just, since we're on the gopher subject, Antoine Winfield Jr., good, eh? Just good at
football. I think that already we have a lot of Minnesota
Vikings fans who are looking at this going, come on, we watched every game. He was right in your
backyard. Even the Vikings played a couple of years at the stadium where he dominated. He might
have been, of all the players that were easy to predict that he would step in and be good right
away, he was one of them at the draft where I think everyone saw this coming.
Yeah, I think everyone knew how good he was.
I do wonder, medical rechecks, what, you know,
if there were a good number of teams that were just like,
no, I don't want to touch multiple ACL injuries because, you know,
one more and the guy might never play a snap for us.
So I do think that played a big role in where he did end up falling.
But yes, I think a lot of people are not surprised by how he's looked so far.
Let's talk about two things that are vital to what I'm going to obnoxiously be calling for a long time
the 2021 tunnel for the Vikings because we go down into the tunnel
and that's the only thing we can talk about is just 2021 and not 2020
because things are going super bad um tank yeah
did you have a did you have a reaction to the 2021 tunnel yeah it makes sense it's how it goes yeah
i i think like you are always this way with everything looking forward to the next year
and so forth and i also think that fans would love to dig down and then come back up in 2021
instead of watching the rest of this year
but let's talk about tank for trevor i mean i see it now every vikings tweets from their official
account if you open it up there's about 50 photoshops of trevor lawrence as a minnesota
viking so i want you to first just tell me about trevor lawrence i think he looks good at football from the times I've seen him, but is he what I think Vikings fans have in their minds that he is?
Yes, I 100% would say yes. I mean, he's the best prospect. To me, he's probably the best
prospect since some guys I've never seen before. He's the best prospect I've seen in the quarterback
position in my years of doing this. I think he's better than Andrew Luck. I think he has a bigger arm than Andrew Luck.
I just think the things he does are very translatable to the NFL in terms of
throwing with timing, being able to get through multiple reads,
being able to scan the whole field, and being able to read blitzes,
you know, recognize blitzes, and get the ball out of his hands.
And then he just has an absolute cannon,
probably underratedly can run pretty fast.
Like he can actually add on to your rushing offense.
You saw that against Ohio State last year
where he was running away from Ohio State linebackers,
probably gonna run in like the four, six range.
So there's a lot you can do with them.
And when you get a guy like that in the NFL,
that is a decade of prosperity.
If you can hold on to that guy,
he is that level of good.
So there's a lot of reasons to tank for Trevor.
You got some competition, though, if you're going to be tanking for Trevor this year, it seems.
Yeah, and I'll get to that.
I liked in that Ohio State game that they were whooping his ass,
and then he bounced back and found a way to win it because he was down at one point,
and he said that he heard the
Ohio State players saying we knocked him out we knocked him out and that was where he kind of
jumped back up and wanted to shove it down their throats and to me the quarterback position and
character are just so tied in it's probably every prospect but maybe you get a closer look at it
when it's a quarterback because he talks a lot does interviews and you know all those sorts
of things and you can really hone in on it it's hard to tell if a left guard really wants it but
with a quarterback something like that I know it's anecdotal I know it's smart small we can
talk ourselves into things but to me that competitive level that he has of wanting to
maximize his skills wanting to be great. That says to me, superstar.
I mean, it doesn't. So I guess to me,
just having that doesn't mean superstar. If you didn't have that,
it'd be the red flag is more of the thing. I think guys like, you know,
Mitch Trubisky does not have that,
does not have that killer instinct of if that happened,
he wouldn't be up jaw and wouldn't be giving him that extra fuel.
That's just not who he is. So there are a lot of guys who have that, that but i mean when you have the other tools that he has the other you know full skill set and then you have that you feel really comfortable with a guy a process like that i
shouldn't necessarily be saying yield for fields that it's entirely tanked for trevor or what's
the gap between those two as we speak right now i think the gap to me is pretty big in terms of certainty.
That's not saying in four years from now that a guy like –
that Justin Fields will be much worse.
The gap will still be there.
And that in four years from now, Justin Fields could be the better quarterback.
That's very possible.
But I just think with the way they perform in the football field right now,
you see Trevor Lawrence doing things that he's going to do next year in the NFL.
You don't see as much of that from Fields.
He played behind a ridiculously good offensive line.
He sat in the pocket all day long and got, you know,
had guys running wild down the football field wide open with a ridiculously good wide receiving core.
And so it was not nearly as translatable when he puts up these big numbers,
big accuracy numbers, big touchdown numbers, not nearly as translatable. he puts up these big numbers, big accuracy numbers, big touchdown numbers.
Not nearly as translatable, but the skills are there.
Like he doesn't have as big an arm as Trevor Lawrence,
but he has an NFL arm.
He can run definitely better than Trevor Lawrence.
He is an add-on to your run game.
Big dude and can be your short yardage goal line type of back
and can do a lot of things in that nature.
So yeah, Fields has a pretty darn good skill set in his own right.
But I think he – you need a season of him.
You need another season.
We've seen Lawrence for two.
You need another season of Fields to feel good about the high level
he showed last season.
How are you dealing with the big statistics that come out of
Ohio State quarterbacks?
I mean, I think if I was put in there, I could throw for a couple hundred yards
a game.
I mean, it just seems like people are wide open all the time.
And with Dwayne Haskins, this was a big debate when he was coming out in the draft.
He has these insane statistics.
He has Baker Mayfield-like numbers.
But how do you know?
And then so far in the NFL, it's been a lot of up and down with Dwayne Haskins.
And I wonder if that sort of is problematic for you when a lot of quarterbacks can put up the same type of production. It's something you have to take into account. And
the good thing is with Fields and Haskins, we've seen them play in the same offense and we have
far grading system, which actually, you know, judges the throws that they've had. And we get
to see where Fields or where Haskins production came, who, you, who led the NCAA in screen yardage,
led the NCAA in yards on crossing routes,
things that are not difficult for a quarterback to do.
And he did not grade out nearly as well as Fields did,
whereas Fields gained a ton of his yards,
was one of the most accurate quarterbacks on vertical throws.
He was a lot better at throwing down the football field than Dwayne Haskins was.
So there were definite red flags if you dug deeper than just, you know,
whatever, 40-plus touchdown, 4,800 yards for Haskins. A lot there were definite red flags. If you dug deeper than just, you know, whatever, 40 plus touchdown,
4,800 yards for Haskins, a lot of that was phony production.
Whereas I think Fields has done a lot more on his arm,
but you're never going to be able to separate what a quarterback can do with,
you know,
what the receiving talent and the offensive line that he has blocking for him
because a lot of guys will look good if they can always have their first read
open and always have their first read open
and always have three to four seconds to throw.
That's just a pretty common sort of denominator amongst guys who play football at that level.
So I do, it is worrisome, but I think you have to dig deeper into the throw by throw
and actually try to evaluate that than just using their raw stats.
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Now, I totally agree with you on the Vikings not being quite in the conversation as the
Jets.
The Denver Broncos are about to start a UDFA, Brett Rippin.
Is he related to Mark Rippin?
Is that his kid?
Do you know?
I should know that.
I do not know that.
Man, those Washington offenses with Mark Rippin, very innovative with Joe Gibbs.
Anyway, that's how old I am, And I'm sorry for that. So,
but Brett Rippon is going to start for them. Sam Darnold looks like a disaster. The Jets
are the worst coach football team, not named the Detroit Lions. I mean, just, and okay,
debatable now, maybe worse. And Jacksonville is like a GIF where someone's looking around the
corner. Like, don't forget about us I know remember
Carolina once won in week one and then I think against the Vikings and then lost all the rest
of the games the whole year with Chris Winkie it does happen so I think that these are teams that
are decidedly worse than the Minnesota Vikings which could put them for a lot of other positions
that you and I on future podcasts will break down. But could they say not play for Trey?
How are you going to evaluate Trey Lance this year?
That's a tough one, and he plays this weekend.
And it's an absurd turn of events to where North Dakota State scheduled one game
all year after they canceled their whatever season.
They play Central Arkansas.
And so, honestly, what he does this weekend is really not going to sway me
too much because we did a full season of them as a registered freshman and he's going to come out
because he's going to be a top 10 pick because he's in the similar vein to the guys we just
talked about and that he has a monster arm he probably is going to run the four fives he's 225
pounds he didn't throw a single pick all last season, which is going to get repeated a thousand
times between now and the draft. Unless he throws four against Central Arkansas. Exactly, yeah,
then that's all you're going to hear also, but I do think that there's a lot to like,
and it's just one of those situations where it's the tools versus, you know, competition versus
actual performance, because the performance is fine. He wasn't lighting it up by any means. They weren't asking him to light it up.
He passed the ball and dropped back fast 18 times a game.
They were a run heavy offense. He was, you know,
he ran for over a thousand yards in that offense. He was a runner first.
And so it's a weird sort of dichotomy and you're not playing good competition.
You're never going to see him against good competition.
They were supposed to play Oregon this year. That game got canceled.
So you're never going to see it, but you didn't see it a lot. Carson Wentz gets good competition.
Now that's not a good, maybe at this point in his career, a good comparison that you might
be favorable for him. But I do think that there is something to be said for he has all the tools
succeed. And when you have a big arm like that, and when you have proven, you know, and that you
can run and be a value add in the run game, it just makes your life a lot easier.
You don't have to be perfect.
You don't have to be, you know, like Drew Brees does right now
and not miss a single read all game long to win.
So I do think that he will end up going top 10,
and it's just going to be one of those evaluations where it depends on the guy
and depends on the situation, depends on how creatively they're going to use him
because it's all there.
But it's going to be such a big leap that he has to put in the work
and has to get himself there.
So that one, like I said, I don't think it matters what he does this Sunday
or Saturday.
And I'm not convinced the Vikings would go quarterback unless it's number one
overall and then you just absolutely cannot pass up on Trevor Lawrence.
We've seen other teams, including the Detroit Lions, feel like, well, we're set with Matt Stafford or even Washington,
not drafting Tua. Maybe it's a different situation with Lawrence, but if you don't draft number one,
then they might be one of those teams to trade back to somebody who's desperate for a quarterback.
But of course, that's happening in May. So let's talk about what happened last Sunday with Justin
Jefferson. Now, you and I what happened last Sunday with Justin Jefferson.
Now, you and I talked a number of times about Jefferson,
and here's the most interesting development for him for Sunday,
which I think says a little bit about him as a player.
The fact that he lined up outside most of the time,
after the first two weeks he was a slot receiver and barely saw the ball,
and then all of a sudden he lines up outside,
he gets the start at the X receiver, and lights it up, 175 yards,
played at a different speed than the Tennessee Titans.
Impressive, Mike.
Yeah, it makes you wonder what the hell was going on the last three weeks
or all of preseason to where he never even got that opportunity.
He was kind of pigeonholed in the slot there,
pigeonholed as their number three wide receiver.
When I think everyone with two eyes could see Ola B.C.
Johnson is not a good number two wide receiver.
He is still a limited number two,
at least give this guy a little opportunity to go for it.
And they did,
and he runs with it.
So I was very impressed.
The,
you saw a lot of the same things you saw at LSU in terms of his ability
after the catch, that long, deep over route,
his ability at the catch point on the go ball where it was a little
underthrown, you know, skies over the DB and secures it.
Now, it's one game.
I think the consistency on the outside was the question mark of can he
consistently beat guys one-on-one.
And, you know, two of his big plays were, like I said, the over route was not really beating a guy one-on-one. And, you know, two of his big plays were, like I said,
that the over route was not really beating a guy one-on-one.
It was kind of just the DB falling asleep.
And then the go ball was the DB's right there, but he makes the play.
So can he consistently do that?
That remains to be seen.
But it's about as encouraging a start as you can get playing outside receiver.
Yeah, the big plays, unless you're Julio Jones, you don't just write them in.
Like, oh, okay, he's going to be good for three 50-yard catches this week or something or 30 plus.
But where I was impressed is he ran a 10-yard out and beat his guy for a first down. He ran a hitch
and then ran after the catch for another 15, 20 yards. His ability with the ball in his hands,
I think it stood right out at LSU. But you just don't know in the NFL.
Like, is that going to translate?
Is he going to have that same sort of burst when we see him on this field?
And to look like you're moving at a different speed in the NFL,
it doesn't happen all the time.
Yeah, and again, that's why, like, watching that,
I'm just thinking to myself, what could he have been doing in practice?
Like, if he's looking anything like that, he should have at least gotten the opportunity. Maybe he just wasn't familiar with
the playbook, wasn't going to be able to run the plays. That could be the, that's probably the only
thing I could think of to not, you know, give him that chance. And it's maybe too simplistic to say,
why don't you just run a reverse with him or a bubble screen and just like let him touch the
football and run that way with it. But maybe it is in a Kubiak style offense you got to learn all of the things and make sure everything's
all set maybe but I agree with you the first couple of weeks you should be giving this man
the football and I we still go over this with Delvin Cook of like how about you like put him
in the slot and run a screen with him or something because his line's not very good. But anyway, other conversations.
Now the corners from the last draft, Cameron Dantzler gets hurt immediately.
And, I mean, it comes into my mind, like,
is the guy going to get hurt a lot because of his size?
And Jeff Gladney has had a bit of a rough go of it so far.
How long do you give young corners, though?
Because life is hard as a young corner in the NFL, as Vikings fans are finding out.
That is kind of the age-old question we've seen teams just get burned.
When you put so many resources into two or three classes, now they have Hughes, Dantzler, Hill, Gladney, all guys on rookie contracts.
We saw that with the Eagles, who after their Super Bowl window,
they went all in on some youth at corner.
None of them turned out to be good.
And so I do think that the leash has to be a little tighter.
Then you have to see encouraging things.
You have to see good performance as a rookie at some point for a stretch
to be willing to say, I'm going to bring that guy back and he's going to be my guy next year.
So if you don't see that from any point from Gladney, from Dantzler,
from Hughes, you got to hit it again.
Like you got to go back to the well,
because it's too important a position to be as bad as they are right now.
Yeah. And they are about the worst in the NFL right now and,
and getting consistently beaten, even on just like mental stuff,
which is where I go, all right, well,
that fix itself or not?
Because I've seen this go either way.
So what does the development curve look like in your mind?
Because previous Vikings corners have not really gotten in games as a rookie.
This is new for me covering rookie corners actually getting to play a lot.
So what does that usually look like from corners?
Because I even remember I was in Buffalo when Stephon Gilmore came into the league.
First three games, he was about the worst corner in the NFL.
And then after that, the guy's a superstar.
So I kind of want to say, like, don't panic just yet, but wow, has it been rough.
I think there's the development curve is, yeah, it could be just bad at the beginning.
But you have to see plays.
Like, plays on the football, plays where they, like, it gums quicker
if you don't see that.
And it goes from that, like I said, to plays, to then that's consistently
every time they're making that sort of the right read, the right whatever.
So I think that's a developmental curve for a good cornerback,
for a guy who's going to turn good or elite, that sort of thing.
Like I said, like a Jair Alexander, he wasn't't great as a rookie but he had a game where he had like
four pass breakups he had a game where he was in hip pockets and he got the job done you saw that
and now I think he's developed into one of the better cornerbacks in the NFL and that's just
even Marcus Peters as a rookie was targeted like 120 times uh you know really up and down gave up
almost a thousand yards but you saw a bunch of plays on the football.
I think that's what you want to see is more plays on the football
because that's just what you're going to have to do at the cornerback position.
There's only so few Nadia Asmas in the world where you just don't get targeted at all
because everyone knows they're so good and not going to be open.
Guys are going to get tested, and you have to prove that not to throw your way
by getting your hand on the football, picking off passes, that sort of thing.
So more plays in the football is what you'd like to see from these corners
down the stretch.
Okay, I have two more things for you.
One, the recent draft history of the Vikings, say post-2015, is rough.
And it seems to be getting rougher with Garrett Bradbury is not taking a step
forward.
And I think we knew and you and I talked about how those arms aren't getting longer.
And he's not going to gain 20 pounds and all of a sudden be able to handle Jeffrey Simmons,
who, by the way, looked like Warren Sapp on Sunday, I think.
So we're seeing the same issues.
DeForest Buckner took advantage of him.
And then Jeffrey Simmons, who has weight on him, pushed him back into the quarterback. He snaps the ball at the wrong time,
which I think was probably on him. I think Kirk Cousins usually knows the snap count. So
we're seeing some of the same issues with Bradbury. Irv Smith, I think, will be fine.
But even if you go back a couple years, they just haven't had many of those hits that they had from a Stefan Diggs or a
Daniil Hunter and so forth and a lot of their process I think was influenced by getting Daniil
Hunter in the third round because I've heard that come up over and over and over and over again
and the offensive line it just doesn't seem to be happening no matter how many they draft outside of
Brian O'Neill so I wonder what you think and I know it's hard because you cover all 32 teams,
but of those types of processes of saying we hit on this tall, lanky guy
who didn't have many sacks, let's take those all the time,
and with the offensive line building it around lighter guys like Pat Elfline
and Garrett Bradbury who haven't really worked out.
Yeah, I think the biggest issue is just that you can't whiff completely in the first
round. Like you have to rely on first rounders to at least be average to above average starters.
Like that should be the baseline for a first round pick. And you have guys like Laquan Treadwell,
Mike Hughes, Garrett Bradbury over that span who don't meet that baseline, who are well below
average, who are liabilities, some of them at their respective positions, but you're forcing
them, you know, you're kind of shoehorning them in there because they're first round picks
and you can't give up on them they're first round picks and that's that's kind of the thing that can
put you behind the eight ball and they got lucky to find the guy in Adam Thielen who was so good
that they had to put Laquan Treadwell on the bench didn't you know force him into a role
and that sort of thing but when you're not not at least getting competency out of your first
round picks that really screws you at those respective position groups because then you refuse to
address them until it's too late and we've seen that with both cornerback and their offensive
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Yeah, that's a great point.
See, now I've been having a little bit
different of focus when writing about the drafts is that they haven't hit on mid and late round
guys. And some of that is process. When you draft Ben Gideon, the max Ben Gideon that you ever get
is a number three linebacker who only plays 20% of the snaps. And that's a fourth round pick.
Like that's a pick that should become something. And Alexander Madison has been a guest on the podcast.
He's a terrific human being.
He's a good football player,
but he's a running back in the third round when you have Delvin cook on your
football team.
Like is, was that something that you really needed to do there?
And so I think that sure it's nitpicky to say, well,
why'd you pick this guy, that guy, the other thing,
but not hitting on anyone in the late rounds aside from, I don't know,
Fadi Adenabo is really their best pick in years from the late rounds.
I think that's really hurt their depth.
So you go down to Daniel Hunter and you go, okay, who's next?
No one.
Yeah, and that's, I guess it is across the board.
And you do want, it's not just you, the baseline early rounds should be,
you know know an average
starter but then you have to get competency out of the late rounds or guys who can plug and play
and not be you know complete liabilities and they just haven't had that either and so I do think
some of that is process like you mentioned a backup running back in the third round is never
a good use of a draft pick I'll just say it Like anyone who drafts a backup running back in third round,
you're throwing,
you're throwing that pick down the drain.
If you're,
if you want to improve your run game,
throw more resources at your offensive line.
I think that might be their biggest sort of crime over that span is not
throwing more resources at their offensive line because everyone's thin along
their offensive line.
And no one seems now more thin along their interior than the Minnesota
Vikings.
So with the offensive line point, I don't know what you're feeling about offensive linemen in
the draft and what they have to face in the NFL, but I've been watching Bradbury and thinking
there's never been a time in history where three techniques and nose tackles are so dangerous.
I mean, Gilbert Brown used to be the guy that just stuffed the middle, but now
like noses and three techs, I mean, they're just like getting after the quarterback nonstop.
Every week you're facing a guy like that. And I wonder about the process of looking at certain
guys and saying, okay, is he going to be able to block Jadavion Clowney when he lines up over him
or Z'Darrius Smith? Because there's also guys moving around to these positions too. And if you
have one weakness, they'll be like, hey, defensive end guy, line up over the center
and blow his ass into the backfield. I wonder if it's a bit of a changing world here with how you
have to evaluate interior linemen. Yeah, I think it comes down to what you're valuing. And I think
a lot of line coaches watch interior linemen and they look at how they play in the run game. And they look at, you know, Garrett Bradbury running outside zone
at NC State looks like the best run blocker in the country.
Let me get the best run blocker in the country.
That's great.
Now comes to the NFL, and you're passing 65% of the snaps,
and all of a sudden he's getting his butt kicked on those 65% of the snaps.
Why?
Because it's a completely different thing what you should be valuing
at the NFL level.
The run game, yes, it matters to some degree, but if you can't get your job done in pass protection,
I don't care how good of a run blocker you are, you're going to look bad,
and fans are going to be calling for you to be replaced.
So I do think it's almost a mismatch in what they've valued for so many years along the interior,
and it's been run blocking, and that's been 1A, 1B in terms of what you want out of an interior office lineman.
I think that's changed a lot over the last decade or so and that you just have to have pass protectors at those positions. It's like they went back to the well twice. Elfline had
the same issues in college where he would get overpowered or just run right by and you did
the same thing again. Okay, last thing. Who's exciting you for a rookie right now in the NFL?
Who are you watching on Sundays and you're like,
oh, it looks so good and I enjoy it and I'm really right about it?
Really right about it?
Yeah, really right about it.
Give me that part too.
You're a draft guy.
I made everyone mad the other day for making fun of somebody
for saying they were right about something.
Oh, yeah, I did see that.
I actually enjoyed that.
Take a joke, my gosh. Anyway.
Because like everyone, like if you do draft, you're always like, you never say this guy who's
doing great. Oh, I had a sixth round great on this guy doing great. No one ever says that. Oh,
this guy doing great. I had a first round great on him. Chase Young, I called him good. That's
what he's doing great now. You nailed it. You nailed it. He's good, yeah.
But actually, two of the most exciting players,
and this hurts me to say because the Kansas City Chiefs defensive players,
Tershawn Warnes, the defensive tackle, who's a UDFA on a Missouri S&T.
The guy looks like an actual player on a defense that needed actual players
at defensive tackle.
He's a little undersized,
but he already has a handful of pressures in his first three games and like
looks like he can move line of scrimmage in the run game.
So Tershawn Warden,
and then they have a cornerback in Legereus Sneed who already has two picks,
dropped a pick last night,
is starting at outside cornerback for them and looks like a legit outside
cornerback, played safety last year at LA Tech, a fourth round pick.
The fact that they got a fourth round pick, UDFA defensive tackle,
who are playing legit snaps, one starting at corner,
one playing legit rotation and rollout DT,
and looking good is a crazy win for a team that just won the Super Bowl.
So those two guys, obviously I didn't even scout Sean Ward,
I didn't even hear about him until week one.
But Legereus Snead, I was a fan of at corner, not a fan of at safety.
Actually had him one spot on my draft board ahead of where he went in the actual draft.
So I'm going to talk that one up as a win.
Nailed it.
And they get criticized for drafting a running back first round.
And then they nail a corner later on.
It's just like, hey, that is the draft for you.
Well, this is really fun, Mike.
It's always super insightful to talk to you and to listen to the Two for One podcast with you and Austin Gale.
It is absolutely phenomenal, honestly.
During draft season, it was an every single day type of thing, and it was great.
So always appreciate your work and glad to have you on, buddy.
Let's do it again soon.
Yeah, for sure, Matthew.
Thanks, man.